Be careful what you say… Important and scary

Be careful what you say, you may wind up in a mental hospital like Marine Brandon Raub. Since when does calling for a revolution mean that you belong in a mental ward? Since when does believing 9/11 was an inside job make you a crazy person and a danger? If that’s the case, why wasn’t Charlie Sheen locked up? Hell, why wasn’t half of Hollywood locked up?

Now, I’m not going to sit here and preach that Raub is or is not a danger or that he should or should not have been locked up. But I do find it peculiar that his only “crime” were Facebook posts that weren’t, to my understanding, even made to the public. They were made in private chat.

“They did not charge him with anything,” Mr. Whitehead said in an interview Wednesday with Times247.com. “He was in his underwear, in his living room, he sees a group of police, FBI agents walking up, he talks with them, he’s asked about some Facebook postings, they handcuff him.”The Facebook postings — the biggest clue so far to the reasons for his detention — were part of a private chat, inaccessible without an invitation, and included anti-government sentiments and warnings of revolution.

“This was a closed group, not public, not a posting on a wall,” said Cathleen Thomas, Mr. Raub’s mother, in a Wednesday morning interview. “They had to hack in to it to see it, then they took the comments out of context. But agree with him or not, agree with his comments or not, the bigger question is, why is the government checking on postings in the first place? The point is, he has a right to free speech.”

Mr. Whitehead said the postings were part of an Internet game and stemmed from song lyrics. Regardless, Mr. Raub has still not been charged with any crime — or even officially arrested, Mr. Whitehead said. He has been transferred to a facility four hours from the family, however, for up to 30 more days of psychiatric evaluation.

“I got a call saying he arrived last night about 10 o’clock at the VA hospital in Salem,” Mrs. Thomas said. “They’re doing intake on him now.”

The intake evaluation will decide whether Mr. Raub will be placed in the psychiatric ward, and for how long, Mrs. Thomas added.

And even Oath Keepers is getting involved. Oath Keeper editor Brandon Smith relates the details of Raub’s kidnapping by the FBI:

The FBI, the Chesterfield County Police, and apparently the Secret Service were videotaped by Raub’s family hauling him away in handcuffs. These agencies claim that Brandon is “not under arrest”.

Dee Rybiski, a spokeswoman for the Richmond FBI office, would not comment on the matter except to reiterate that no arrest had been made.

“We don’t comment on mental-health issues or anything like that,” she said. “We simply went to speak with him about the many complaints that we had gotten about his posts.”

The local police reiterated that “there is no criminal matter” and that they were only present to help the FBI transport Raub.

This is a rather strange stance on the part of law enforcement officials, considering they claimed during the incident that Raub was taken away for “resisting arrest”. I would love to hear the FBI’s explanation on how a man can resist arrest without officially being arrested…?

According to Raub’s family, he was never read his Miranda Rights. And, Raub himself stated:

“I talked to a Secret Service gentleman for 20, 30 minutes,” Raub said. “I was very cooperative and answered everything honestly…”

Raub is currently being held at the Salem VA Medical Center, where he is to be “detained” after a hearing before a judge who has enforced a 96 hour “observation period”:

The comments which allegedly sparked his persecution included references on Facebook to the government’s complicity in 9/11, his belief that there will be a revolution in America, and suggestions that the Bush family is populated with “child rapists”.

Whether or not you agree with any of Raub’s assertions, the bottom line is that under the First Amendment he is perfectly within his rights to publicly uphold them. There is no law against “conspiracy theory”, at least, not yet…

Raub’s family has also stated that the FBI believes some of his comments to be “terroristic” and threatening in nature. The only comment that I could find that could be even remotely interpreted as threatening is this post from August 13:

“Sharpen up my axe; I’m here to sever heads…”

This is NOT a statement that could be upheld in any respectable courtroom as being a specific threat and is not prosecutable. Also as it turns out, the line is a lyric from a song by the band ‘Swollen Members’ entitled “Bring Me Down”:

So, apparently if the FBI does not like your taste in tunes you can be whisked away to a mental hospital. Take note music fans…

Raub’s other comments include:

“If you are unaware of the great amount of evil perpetrated by the American Government I suggest you take … your head out of the sand. The day of reckoning is almost at hand.”

“I am standing against a great evil. I will do it all by myself if I have to.”

This is obviously not a mentally ill person, but a political activist and dissident being subjected to a new standard of “Pre-Crime” on the part of our government. This action is, in my view, meant to set a precedent by which many other veterans and common citizens who oppose the criminality of the establishment will be subjected, detained, and who knows what could happen after. The sky is truly the limit. . . .

Below is the official statement from the local police as posted on their local Channel 6 CBS affiliate WTVR.

Chesterfield Police assisted federal authorities in their efforts to interview Brandon J. Raub on Thursday, Aug. 16. After speaking to Raub, officers believed him to be in need of further evaluation.

Chesterfield officers at the scene contacted Chesterfield Mental Health Crisis Intervention. Crisis workers recommended that police take Raub into custody and bring him in for evaluation.

Chesterfield police took Raub into custody for evaluation in accordance with Virginia State Code § 37.2-808 Emergency custody.

Raub was placed in handcuffs after he resisted officers’ attempts to take him into custody.

Raub was evaluated by a Chesterfield mental health official, who determined that he should be held under a temporary dention order and transported to John Randolph Medical Center for additional evaluation.

Raub was not arrested and he faces no criminal charges in Chesterfield. As this is not a criminal matter, Chesterfield police have no further comment.

So, does this mean the people at teh helm of Facebook are in bed with the leftist government? Seems that way. Seen Minority Report? I wonder if that’s what Facebook is going to be used for.